Chapter Twenty-Six
It occurred to Nick, as they walked up the path to the small cottage, that Adelaide was a shade or two paler than her usual paleness.
“Are you well?” he asked quietly. “Is she expecting us?”
“Yes— No. That is, I sent word that I would visit the earliest I could get away, but I said nothing about you. How could I? I wasn’t expecting you myself.” That seemed to agitate her even further. “Perhaps you could wait in the carriage.”
“Not a chance.” He rapped sharply on the door.
It opened.
There was a moment of silence as Adelaide and the woman who’d opened the door stared at each other, which was then followed by happy, feminine laughter as they embraced.
Finally, the other woman stepped back and ushered them in. “Come in, come in. You must be so eager—” She stopped suddenly, seeming to realize for the first time that Nick was standing there. “Ah.”
“Mr. Nicholas Eastwood is the brother of my sister’s fiancé,” Adelaide said. She hesitated, then continued, “Mr. Eastwood, this is Miss Jane Sherwood, who was so kind to me during my…troubles.”
He followed them inside. The cottage was small and sparsely furnished, but it was clean and tidy.
“I was just about to put the kettle on,” Miss Sherwood said. “Would you like tea?”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
Adelaide continued to look about the room as though expecting someone else to be there.
Miss Sherwood smiled. “James is resting, but he will wake soon.”
James.
Nick’s fingertips tingled. “Who is James?” he asked Miss Sherwood. And why did Adelaide want him?
“My son.”
He looked at Miss Sherwood’s hand, unadorned by a wedding ring. She returned his look evenly, daring him to ask a question she would likely refuse to answer. Her lips pursed in a way that made him think she would relish telling him no. He cleared his throat. “How lovely.”
He had expected an elderly, dour spinster, but Miss Sherwood was not that. He doubted she had entered her fourth decade. She appeared strong willed, but not dour. Her cheeks reminded him of rosy apples when she smiled at Adelaide. She did not, he noticed, smile at him.
While Miss Sherwood busied herself in the kitchen, Adelaide removed her bonnet. She settled it on her lap, then proceeded to tie and untie the ribbons.
He watched her silently. Why was she so anxious? If she had been concerned for her welcome, surely those concerns were now laid to rest. Miss Sherwood was clearly happy to see her.
The teakettle screamed, and there was an answering cry from up the stairs. Adelaide jumped to her feet, her bonnet falling to the ground. “Shall I get him, then?”
She did not wait for an answer before darting from the room, trampling her bonnet in her haste. Nick retrieved it from the floor. Her heel had crushed the straw brim.
“How do you take your tea?” Miss Sherwood asked, setting the tray down.
He glanced at the tray, noted the extremely small sugar bowl, and said, “Just a splash of milk, thank you.”
She poured the tea, added the milk, and passed it to him. When she made her own cup, she added neither milk nor sugar. Adelaide, he knew, took her tea with both milk and sugar. Had she done without during her year here? He did not like that.
What else had she gone without?
Miss Sherwood did not seem to feel any obligation to engage him in conversation. The minutes slid by silently as they slowly drank their tea.
Finally, he said, “I’ll go see if Miss Bursnell requires help.” He stood.
“No, you will not.” Miss Sherwood sipped her tea, clearly having no more to say on the matter.
As he could not refuse a direct order from a woman in her own home, he reluctantly sat down again.
The long-case clock ticked loudly as it marked another quarter hour gone. It was strange to see such a costly item in a cottage rather than a grand London home. How had it come to be possessed by Miss Sherwood? Perhaps she had not always been poor. There was a gentle way about her, an almost aristocratic accent in her tone, that made him doubt she had always been a farmer.
Adelaide appeared with a small infant in her arms—James, Nick presumed. He stood quickly.
To his surprise, Adelaide did not return to her chair. Instead, she sank to her knees on the floor, her skirt billowing around her. She released James, and he squatted next to her.
“I’ve brought something for you, dearest. Would you like to see it?” she asked.
When he clapped his hands and laughed, she reached into her case and pulled out four wooden blocks, one by one. Each one was painted with a different scene, two pastoral and two from London.
“See the daffodils, James?” She handed the boy the first block. “It reminds me of my home in Northumberland. Every spring the daffodils would bloom, and Alice would gather great armfuls and fill our house with them.”
James gurgled intelligibly.
“This one is the fireworks at Vauxhall Gardens. I hear they are splendid. Perhaps someday we shall see them together.” She handed him the second block.
James clapped it together with the first block. He enjoyed the noise so much that he promptly did it again.
“And here we have Windsor Castle, where the king lived until he went mad. Now he lives at Kew Palace, but isn’t the castle pretty, James?”
James apparently agreed that the castle was pretty, for he dropped the first two blocks in favor of the third, which he shoved into his mouth. Adelaide laughed.
“Why are you telling him these things?” Nick asked her. “He can’t understand a word of it.”
“How else is he supposed to learn to speak if no one speaks to him?” she said. She leaned closer to the baby and said in a loud whisper, “Pay him no mind, James. He is a very silly man.”
James smacked her cheek with his palm. She caught it and kissed it. Lord, how she looked at the child, with her whole heart shining in her eyes. She was clearly smitten with Miss Sherwood’s son. Almost as if—
“How old is the child?” he asked abruptly.
“Not quite a year,” Miss Sherwood said.
He must have been born just when Adelaide had arrived in Epsom, after the loss of her own son. Little wonder, then, that she had grown attached to the lad. James was only two months or so younger than their own son would have been.
Had he lived.
Suddenly, there was not enough air in the room. His chest seized and ached as though gripped by an iron fist.
“Mr. Eastwood?”
Nick tried to focus. Miss Sherwood was watching him with concern.
“I’m afraid I have been very rude, Mr. Eastwood. You came by carriage, did you not? Will you please inform your driver there is water and hay in the stable that he might make use of.”
“Thank you, yes, I’ll do that,” Nick gasped. He stumbled to his feet.
Once outside, he took several calming breaths. It was easier out here, without the walls pressing in on him. The awful ache in his chest eased somewhat.
He shook his head, trying to dislodge the image of Adelaide playing with a son that was not theirs.
Theirs.
What the devil was wrong with him?
He found Thorne and relayed Miss Sherwood’s message. But he did not return to the house. Instead, he found himself walking the length of the cow pasture. He needed to think.
He had known she’d suffered. But her suffering, he had believed, was the result of bad luck on his part, and a series of unfortunate decisions for which she could blame no one but herself. She ought to have returned home rather than running away to Epsom.
Before today, her pain had not weighed overmuch on his conscience. Yes, he truly regretted the missing letter, but such was the fickleness of life. He hadn’t been to blame for that, or for the death of the child.
He had even thought, in a dark corner of his mind, that it had all been for the best. For if the babe had survived, what kind of life would Adelaide have had? Where would she have gone? How would she have supported their son until Nick returned? Of course, he had not expected to return at all, which was what had prompted his abrupt departure in the first place. What if the babe had survived, but he had not? What would have become of them?
Yes, he had believed the ill fate fortunate, considering the alternatives.
But now?
Oh, God, now.
He had never meant to hurt her. True, he had realized from the very moment they met that she was not his usual sort of dalliance. She was a viscount’s daughter, sweet and virginal, nothing like the experienced widows and barmaids he usually kept himself to. He had been so careful with Adelaide, but he had known the risk, and had not been averse to marrying her.
Should the need arise.
He shuddered, remembering the callous note he had left her, with directions to contact him should the need arise. He had made it clear that unless she was with child, there would be no such need.
As though she had meant no more to him than a barmaid.
He had left similar notes on similar bed stands—with the intention of offering money rather than marriage, of course. He had not loved those other women, and they had not loved him. They certainly would not have expected marriage, but would have been grateful for any funds he offered them. In his preoccupation with his next mission, it had not occurred to him that it might be otherwise for Adelaide.
Very otherwise.
For she had believed herself in love with him. She had trusted him, giving herself to a man she’d believed returned her feelings.
And, oh, he had behaved abominably. He ought to have married her then, before he returned to war, so she would never have needed to write that damned letter in the first place. She would have been safe at her father’s house until Nick returned for her. Perhaps if she had, the babe would have survived. If Nick never came back, her reputation would have remained unblemished.
He returned to the cottage to find Adelaide sitting with James on her lap. Her cheek rested against his golden baby curls. Nick hated to interrupt, but he must. “It’s time to go, angel,” he said gently. “Your mother will be worried if we don’t make it back to London before dark.”
Her arms tightened around the boy, and for a moment he thought she would refuse. “Must we?” she asked. But then she stood, handing James to Miss Sherwood. She touched his nose with her finger. “I’ll visit again soon.”
Nick waited while she pulled a small purse from her case and handed it to Miss Sherwood. “For everything,” she whispered. “You have been so good to me.”
“Come again,” Miss Sherwood said with a grateful smile. “As often as you can.”
Adelaide remained composed while he helped her into the carriage. It was not until they were out of view that she made a low keening noise and her body shook with sobs.
He was beside her at once. “Don’t—please don’t.”
But she did, and he was helpless to dam the flood. Realizing he could not comfort her, he simply wrapped his arms around her, pulling her onto his lap as though she were a small child. She turned her face into his chest, soaking his shirt with her tears. He stroked her hair, her shoulders, her back, rocking her, murmuring soft words he knew she did not harken.
“Forgive me. Forgive me.”
He would make this right, somehow. He would find her a man she deserved, a man who hadn’t murdered and lied, a man who hadn’t left her so cruelly with a baby in her belly.
He was not that man.
But he knew just who was.